


Go and Come Back

by glymr



Category: Superman Returns (2006)
Genre: Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-30
Updated: 2009-11-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 15:03:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,055
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/787367
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/glymr/pseuds/glymr
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Richard never could resist someone in pain.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Go and Come Back

He's waiting when Richard lands, floating a couple of inches above the wooden dock, his arms folded across his chest. The seaplane touches down lightly, sending a spray of water into the air, but none of it seems to touch him. Richard unfastens his straps and steels himself a little.

"Superman," he says once he's out of the plane.

"Richard," nods Superman in return.

"What can I do for you?"

"I wanted to talk to you about Lois. And...Jason."

Richard nods. He's known this conversation was coming for awhile. "All right. I have a few questions myself, actually."

"I...thought you might." He doesn't relax his posture at all, but slowly, almost imperceptibly, he drifts downward until his feet actually touch the dock, until Richard doesn't have to look *up* to meet his eyes anymore. "What would you like to know?"

Richard takes a breath, getting his thoughts in order. Well, he might as well start with one of the biggest.

"Lois...doesn't remember you. That is...she doesn't remember you...together." Superman just gives a nod like he's not surprised and Richard feels a stab of anger. "Why doesn't she remember you? For all she knows you could have raped her!"

Superman's eyes widen, and his face actually loses some of its color. "Is that what she thinks?" he asks, and his voice is a little hoarse.

"No," says Richard. "Of course not. But she doesn't remember conceiving...your son," it still hurts to think it, "Superman, she needs to know why she can't remember that!" Her tension, the tears in her eyes when she told him, _I swear, Richard, I didn't know!_

Superman stares at him for a long moment, then scrubs one hand across his face. It's an oddly human gesture, the more so for the fact that Richard is certain he's doing it unconsciously. "Oh God," whispers Superman. "I never thought...Never intended..." He sighs and sits down on the edge of the dock and stares blankly out across the water, his feet hanging off the edge. Richard sits down next to him and waits.

Finally Superman begins to speak, his voice low and resonant.

"I was sent here as a small child. Humans found me and raised me _as_ a human, even though I'm not. Human." His hands rest lightly on the dock on either side of him. Hands that could destroy the entire wooden structure with a touch. "When I met Lois, I-" he swallows. "I fell in love with her." He falls silent for several long moments and Richard waits. "All I ever wanted was...well." He moves his shoulders in a half-shrug and goes on. "I had...records from my homeworld. Recordings which my...my _birth_ father and mother left me. They said I could only have a relationship with someone if I gave up my powers. If I became human."

Richard blinks at that. "You can do that?"

"I...sort of. The technology existed to contain my abilities in a vessel...a crystal. When I did that, I became, essentially, human."

Richard just stares at him. "You...you actually did it? You gave it all up?"

Superman just looks at him and smiles sadly. "Yes."

"You can fly, you're invulnerable and have super-strength and x-ray vision and you gave all of it up?"

"All of it."

"So you could be with Lois?"

"Yes."

"Wow."

"It was worth it."

Richard thinks of Lois, and Jason, and what he would do for them, what he has done for them, and his lips turn up in a small smile in spite of himself. "Yeah." Then his puzzled frown returns. "But you got your powers back."

"I had to." Now Superman frowns into the distance. "Zod came. I couldn't let him...let them."

"Oh." And suddenly everything makes a lot more sense. "So you gave up being human."

"I didn't have a choice."

"And Lois?"

"It put Lois in a difficult position. There were things she knew that...she couldn't know if Superman still existed. Ultimately we...we stored her memories of the things that had happened between us...in a crystal. There were reasons at the time..." He turns and looks at Richard pleadingly. "I didn't know she was pregnant! I didn't even think it was _possible_ ," he gives a small, broken laugh, "If I'd known I would never, _never_ -"

"I know," says Richard. "I know."

Superman meets his eyes for a long moment before turning away to gaze out at the water again. "After that, it was all...it was too much. I had to get away, had to," he gives the little half-shrug again. "When scientists talked about finding the remains of Krypton, I thought...maybe. Maybe there I could find someone. Zod and the others survived, the worst of Krypton survived. Surely someone else might have...someone I could..." He stops, and Richard finds himself reaching out, laying a hand on his shoulder like he's a buddy, like he's...human. His body is warm, almost hot through the strangely-textured blue fabric.

"What did you find?" he asks softly.

Superman breathes in. Breathes out. "Ashes," he whispers.

Richard squeezes his shoulder, then wonders if he can even feel the difference in pressure. "I'm sorry," he says. It's inadequate, but Superman turns and smiles at him like it's not.

"So I came back here. Back...home." Richard lets go of his shoulder. "And everything...changed so much. Lois is...engaged." He laughs that broken laugh again. "Lois Lane! Engaged to be married! And my crystals, all the records of Krypton, all I have left...Lex Luthor stole them. Defiled them. And...and I have a _son_." He puts his face in his hands. "A son," he repeats softly.

The silence hangs between them. Richard watches Superman and thinks about what Lois had been like when they'd started dating. So miserable. So lonely. He thinks of his son, frightened by what he'd done and by what he might do. He thinks about Superman, curled on the floor of his plane, his breathing harsh and pained.

But mostly he thinks about the pain in Superman's eyes.

Richard never could resist someone in pain.

"I've made so many mistakes," said Superman, his voice low.

A bird with a broken wing.

Without considering it Richard reaches out again, a hand on Superman's arm. "Tell me," he says, "Why did your parents say you had to become human to be with Lois?"

Superman's brows draw together a little. "It wouldn't be safe, otherwise. If I ever...lost control, I could have killed her. And besides...what kind of husband could I be, always having to fly off and rescue people? What kind of _father_ could I be?" He meets Richard's eyes, holding his gaze. "You were there for Lois and Jason when I couldn't be. I - I'm just grateful that Lois has someone...that my son...has such a good father." And he smiles, a genuine smile even through the sorrow in his eyes. "I've made a lot of mistakes, but I'm not going to mess this up." It's a promise, Richard realizes.

Suddenly he's angry.

"So, what now?" he says tightly. "You'll go back to rescuing people, stopping bullets and earthquakes, and just be Mr. Lonely, Celibate Alien?"

Superman sort of blinks at him. "Well...celibate, yes, but not necessarily lonely. I do have friends. I can watch Jason and Lois and you from a distance."

Richard snorts. "Jason's going to need more than that, Superman. He's going to need help understanding who and what he is, help I won't be able to give him. He's going to need you in his life."

There's something like a shy hope in Superman's eyes, and Richard feels a frisson of desire slide down his spine. _So lonely. So sad._

"You can't just run away again. That was your mistake last time, and before, too. You can't have a life by giving up so much of yourself. You can't fix things by leaving."

Superman's staring at him and frowning a little. "What are you saying, Richard?"

What is he saying? Richard isn't sure, but the words sound right. He leans forward and strokes a thumb down Superman's cheek, invulnerable skin soft and hard and warm under his touch. Superman's eyes go wide.

"Can you feel that?" Richard asks.

"Y-yes," answers Superman, taken aback.

Richard leans in and kisses his other cheek. "How about that?" he asks. "Can you feel that?"

Superman swallows and nods. He looks...stunned.

He made _Superman_ look stunned.

Instead of smiling at the thought, Richard leans forward and captures Superman's lips with his own. He means for it to be a chaste kiss, closed-mouth lips on lips, but Superman gasps a little, opening his mouth, and without warning the kiss becomes the complete opposite of 'chaste'.

Superman tastes like coffee, and he feels like nothing else. His mouth is hot and hesitant at first, then eager, then desperate against Richard's. Richard can feel Superman's hands on his arms, hands that can crush coal into diamonds clasp his arms gently, carefully, and Richard realizes that he's not afraid. It makes him laugh in delight and Superman pulls away, looking flustered. "Can you feel *that*, Superman?"

_Flustered._

He's putting one hand on the back of his neck, ducking his head and blushing...Superman, blushing!...and he says almost shyly, "R-Richard, you..." and bites his lip.

And suddenly looks very, very familiar.

"Oh," says Richard as realization dawns. " _Oh._ " Superman looks up at him, suddenly worried, but all Richard can do is stare. "Oh...it's _you_. _Clark,_ " he says in surprise, and Superman looks sort of wild, then pulls him in for another kiss.

It's kind of like kissing some sort of uncontainable natural force, thinks Richard, an earthquake or a bonfire. Or maybe just the irresistible force and immovable object all rolled into one.

Whatever it's like, he feels the tickle of desire along his back and in his stomach and his groin _flare_ into life. "Clark," he whispers again against the other man's lips, and Superman makes a sound which in any other person would be called a whimper and pulls him even closer.

Five years. Five years without any human contact whatsoever. A few weeks? days? of passion before that, and how many years of celibacy before that? How many years of hiding, of loneliness?

Richard nibbles at his lower lip, thinks about it, then bites harder. Superman jerks against him, releasing Richard's arms and balling his hands into fists. "Richard," he whispers, "I-I don't want to hurt you. Either of you." He opens his eyes, and their expression becomes very clear. "Any of you."

"We'll...we'll be careful," says Richard. This is not even remotely the way he'd expected this conversation to go. "I trust you. We trust you."

Superman makes a helpless sound and pulls Richard against him. His tights are doing nothing to hide the fact of his arousal, and Richard grins and lets a hand slide down to stroke him through the blue fabric. "Can you feel _that_?"

The noise he makes and the shudder that ripples through him are more than answer enough.

" _Richard_ ," and if he can make Superman whisper his name like *that*, he can do anything.

"I'm not afraid," he says, and Superman just stares at him like he's speaking in tongues for a moment, or maybe like he's the most amazing thing _Superman_ has ever seen in his life. "I trust you," he says. "I trust you, Superman. Clark." Superman's arms wrap around him, pulling him against his body, and an image of the tree Richard used to climb at his grandparent's house every summer floats into his mind. The branches, thick and strong and warm in the sun and holding him *up*.

"Your parents were _wrong_ ," he whispers, and slides one hand up to cup the back of Superman's...Clark's...neck. "You can have this. You can *have* this," he says fiercely.

Superman shivers. "I...I want..." he begins, then stills, pulls away slightly. He frowns, his eyes suddenly distant. "I have to go," he says, but he doesn't move, pausing to meet Richard's gaze again, his expression pleading for understanding.

"Go," says Richard quickly.

Superman is gone.

"Just come back again," says Richard, his voice quiet in the night.


End file.
